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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27108175">sorry, i don't believe it</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_wf/pseuds/alexwf_afterdark'>alexwf_afterdark (alex_wf)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon Asexual Character, Character Study, Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), Hate Sex, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, The Unknowing (The Magnus Archives), Trans Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, consensual and safe but probably not very sane, though that doesn't come into play all that much</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:28:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,006</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27108175</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_wf/pseuds/alexwf_afterdark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the night before the Unknowing, and Tim can't sleep.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>74</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>sorry, i don't believe it</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>so uhhh i was relistening to s3 and got them angsty jontim brainworms… timeline of events is probably a little fucky so please bear with me</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tim can’t sleep.</p>
<p>He tosses and turns, the cheap bedsheets scratching at his skin and catching on his patchwork of scars. The little alarm clock on the bedside table ticks away, the seemingly innocuous sound amplified in the silence of the room and grating on his nerves. It reminds him of the constant ticking noise in Elias’ office, and it’s all Tim can do not to grab the bloody thing and lob it at the wall.</p>
<p>He knows he should get some rest. Barrelling sleep-deprived into the Unknowing is quite possible the worst thing he could do, even if self-preservation isn’t exactly a concern in his mind. At the very least he needs the energy to swing his axe into Grimaldi’s stupid stolen face.</p>
<p>It’s no use, though. Tim sighs, sits up on the bed, and turns on the light. The room is small, off-white paint peeling off, insipid furniture yellowed by the incandescent lights. It’s all rather grim and depressing, but on the bright side he is alone. Rosie’s always been tactful, and she’d booked him and Jon separate rooms.</p>
<p>The atmosphere in the room is oppressive nearly to the point of suffocation. It makes him think of the stuffy air of the Archives, and that is the <em>last </em>thing he wants to have in mind right now. If he can’t sleep, he might as well go and get some air.</p>
<p>Tim swings out of bed and throws his shirt back on. He hadn’t bothered bringing any kind of sleepwear – that’d seemed like such a futile thing to worry about. Too mundane. Too normal. So he goes out into the corridor in his day clothes, and barefoot, because spending the extra time needed to put on his shoes would mean spending a minute more in that awful room.</p>
<p>And then he immediately bumps into Jon, because of fucking course he does. He’s fumbling with the key-card to his room, drops it altogether when he notices Tim. Something inside Tim rumbles and growls with vitriol at the sight of him, avoiding eye contact, mumbling something under his breath, making himself as small as possible before bending down to pick up the card. It’s quite clear he hasn’t been able to sleep either; the dark shadows under his eyes are even more pronounced than usual, and he smells of cigarette smoke.</p>
<p>Tim should just turn away and keep walking. Go outside, stand in the cool night air, try and clear his mind of anything related to Jon or the Archives. Steel himself in preparation for what he must do come morning.</p>
<p>But the way Jon is standing there, turning the card over in his hands, looking like he wants to say something but is incapable of getting it out, is like touching a flame to gas. He feels the now-familiar stir of anger inside him, this red-hot thing he carries around in place of a heart. It makes him want to shoot venomous words at Jon, to watch the way his expression shifts and his fingers tremble. And he isn’t stronger than that urge, these days. Doesn’t really see any point in holding it back.</p>
<p>“<em>What?</em>”, he spits out, and revels in the way Jon jumps and nearly drops the card again. “You got anything to say? Or are you planning on having some more fun with your spooky telepathy bullshit?”</p>
<p>“No!” Jon pauses, straightens his spine, visibly tries to inject some confidence into his words. “I just wanted to tell you to be careful. I, I know how much you want to take out the Circus, but-”</p>
<p>Tim doesn’t let him finish. “God, shut <em>up.</em>” Those words do nothing more than add fuel to the fire, because how <em>dare he. </em>How fucking dare he. “Now you want me to be careful? You worried about my safety, boss? My well-being? What a joke.”</p>
<p>Jon bristles at him. “Yes, Tim, I am! <em>Why won</em><em>’t you believe me</em><em>?</em>”</p>
<p>They both feel the crackle of static in the air at the same time. Jon’s eyes grow wide (Tim could swear he saw them flash neon-green, just for a split second) and he starts stuttering out an apology. Tim doesn’t really register what he’s doing until after he’s already slammed Jon against the door, hands fisted in his shirt, hoisting him up until he’s nearly eye-level with Tim, pinned to the hard wood by his weight. Jon’s hands fly up, one smooth palm and one blistered and horribly scarred closing around Tim’s wrists. Tim doesn’t hear the card hit the carpeted floor, but he does hear the panicked hitch in Jon’s breath. He feels the compulsion tugging at him, grasping at the words stuck in his chest until they pour out. “Why do you think, you absolute moron? You spend months thinking I’m a murderer, then you fuck off and leave us alone in the Archives, and now you’re turning into a monster and still expecting me to <em>believe </em>what you say,” he hisses, keeping his voice as low as he can. Waking up Daisy or Basira is definitely not something he wants to risk.</p>
<p>For once in his goddamn life, Jon keeps his mouth shut. But Tim isn’t done. “You’re a coward. We were supposed to stick together. But no, you went off running around on your own, too afraid to face the consequences of your actions. Too afraid to face <em>us. </em>And now you want to make amends?” He sneers. “Bit late for that, boss.”</p>
<p>The words seem to satisfy the compulsion. That horrible fishhook dislodges itself from his throat, leaves his breath coming out in harsh pants. Jon is staring at him and the look in his eyes pisses him off. He seems – hurt. Regretful. Terribly desperate, and what gives him the right to think he can look at Tim like that? Like he’s being earnest, like he actually means a word he says?</p>
<p>Tim’s not a violent man, unless he’s directing the violence at monsters and worms and a supernatural circus that has it coming. But in that moment, he feels such an urge to hurt Jon that it scares him.</p>
<p>(And can he be blamed? Don’t monsters deserve to be hurt? Don’t they deserve retribution for the pain they’ve caused?)</p>
<p>And yet, no, Tim can’t do it. Because it’s Jon’s face, and the scars that match his own, and the wireframe glasses that are now askew, and that fucking <em>look </em>in his eyes.</p>
<p>Instead, he finds himself closing the remaining distance between them and kissing him. He isn’t sure why. Maybe he just wants Jon to stop staring at him. Maybe it’s a better way to satisfy that fearsome want that twists his gut. He can’t bring himself to care because Jon squeezes his wrists tighter and then starts kissing him back.    </p>
<p>They’d done this before – back in Research, where everything had been so much easier. Just a normal job, maybe with a few unusual quirks. Tim thought Jon was cute, in a stuffy academic kind of way, Jon enjoyed the stress relief, and so they had a simple understanding. In the early days of the Archives, even after Jon had taken up his holier-than-thou schtick, prissy and more stuck-up than ever, he’d still allowed Tim to muss him up, leave him red-faced and panting, top buttons of his carefully ironed shirt undone. Bristling at the dark marks blooming along the column of his throat, while Tim laughed and commented on it being turtleneck season.</p>
<p>But that had been before. Before Prentiss, and the– the thing that wasn’t Sasha, and Jon’s horrible paranoia, and every single fucked up thing that happened after that. Before companionship had given way to distrust, and anger, an ugly thing that grows and writhes inside him and seethes at the sight of Jon, this man who’d once been his friend and now is something Tim can’t even name. Becoming something he can’t and doesn’t want to understand.</p>
<p>Back then, it had never been like this: the clash of teeth, more violence than passion, hands grappling at clothes and nails digging into skin and scars. Tim bites at his neck with more force than strictly necessary, and Jon hisses but doesn’t stop him, fingers twisting painfully in Tim’s hair and egging him on.</p>
<p>Eventually, Tim pulls off, breathing hard, and Jon’s eyes are glazed over and there’s a mixture of confusion and something else on his face, but at least he’s no longer staring at Tim <em>like that. </em>Which is good. It’s exactly what Tim wants.</p>
<p>He feels the anger inside him settle down, though it remains ever-present, simmering just shy of boiling over, and he lets Jon’s feet touch the floor again. His hands finally leave Tim’s wrists, and they’re reddened and hurting, will probably be sporting marks like shackles. Dramatic irony and all that.</p>
<p>Tim takes a step back, grants him a modicum of personal space. Takes a moment to ponder the absurdity of this situation. God, but he only wanted to go get some air. Apparently even that is too much to ask for. “Grab the card,” he says. Jon hesitates for a moment, then scrambles to comply, picking up the little plastic rectangle and finally succeeding on swiping it over the reader. The door opens with a cheery <em>beep, </em>and Jon steps inside the room.</p>
<p>Tim doesn’t move. Hangs back for a moment, observing him, giving him a very clear chance to close the door and put a stop to this mad rendezvous. Wishing he’d shut the door on his face so Tim can go be alone in the night, like he wanted.</p>
<p>Jon holds the door open.</p>
<p>And Tim isn’t stronger than the inexplainable urge inside him, he really isn’t, so he storms into the room and closes the door himself. And sure, there’s a perfectly serviceable bed three steps away from where he’s standing, but somehow that doesn’t feel right. Instead he crowds Jon, towering over him until he stumbles away and his back hits the wall. Tim doesn’t grab him by the collar again, he’s probably done enough damage to that poor shirt as it is. He strips it off Jon easily enough, and lets it land somewhere on the floor behind him. He wedges one of his legs between Jon’s, buries a hand in his hair and places the other over his chest. Feeling his heartbeat, rabbit-fast – human. Ha.</p>
<p>“Tim,” Jon begins, because of course he can’t stay quiet for a moment longer. Tim doesn’t want to hear it, though. His mouth is back on Jon’s in a second, hand moving from his chest to his hip to hold him in place as he presses in with his leg. Jon’s words melt into moans, no question coming out of him, none of those bursts of static Tim so desperately wants to avoid. He grabs at Tim’s shoulders with shaking fingers, his nails digging into the shirt and the skin below, and uses the leverage to move his hips, grinding against him with jerky motions.</p>
<p>There’s a prickly sensation on the back of Tim’s head, that distinct feeling of being watched that Tim has felt inside the Institute for years now. Like a pair of eyes fixed on him, but amplified, an entire invisible audience. Maybe Elias is keeping watch of his precious fucking Archivist. Tim doesn’t give a shit.</p>
<p>He focuses on Jon instead, the sharp ache of his nails on his shoulders, the way he’s trembling, and Tim is sure he would fall to the floor if he stopped holding him up against the wall. Has half a mind to do just that, really. He breaks off the kiss to bite at his neck, teeth and tongue moving over pockmarks and the edges of that silvery line that crosses his throat. Doesn’t even give Jon a chance to attempt forming words again, shoves two fingers into his mouth and feels his own heart racing when Jon lets out a muffled whimper and feverishly sucks on them. Tim’s painfully hard now, but he pays no mind to it, loses himself in the feeling of Jon against him and under his hands, so pliant and warm that it’s hard to believe he’s any different from the Jon he knew back in Research. It’s a paradox of comfort and hate that he has no hope of unravelling.</p>
<p>It doesn’t take long after that. Jon’s movements grow more and more erratic, and Tim ends up taking away his fingers so he can grab Jon’s waist with both hands and help him ride his leg. He pins Jon with a glare that he hopes is enough to keep him quiet, and by some miracle the only sounds that come out of his mouth as he shakes through his orgasm are soft, keening moans. It’s– so utterly incongruent with the image of him that Tim has built in his mind over the last few months. There’s such a strong sense of vulnerability to him that it tugs at Tim’s heartstrings.   </p>
<p>He loosens his grip on Jon, leaving him to stand on his own, and as Tim expected he slides down the wall until he’s on his knees. He glances up at Tim, then, brown eyes from behind stray strands of hair, and that <em>look </em>on them again. Like he’s about to say something that will make Tim furious or miserable or quite possibly both.</p>
<p>He doesn’t, though. Instead, he fumbles at Tim’s zipper, and Tim lets him, slides both hands into his hair and grips as Jon pulls down his underwear and takes him into his mouth. It’s eager and messy and gets Tim riled up fast, so when Jon grabs the back of his thighs and encourages him to move, he does. He tightens his hold on Jon’s hair and fucks into his mouth, pinning him to the wall, distinctly aware of each little stifled noise Jon makes around him. He comes down Jon’s throat with a long groan and a final jerk of his hips, and Jon’s hands lose their grasp, arms going limp at his sides.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” he whispers when Tim retreats, and it almost sounds sincere. His voice is rough and soft at the same time, and Tim doesn’t want to hear it. He steps back and fixes his clothes, trying to catch his breath, wanting to turn heel and run but unable to tear his gaze from Jon’s face.  </p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” he says, and it grates on Tim’s ears. He looks pitiful, barely able to keep himself from keeling over, his knees digging into the hardwood floor. Grey-streaked hair wild, sticking out in all directions, escaped from the loose bun Jon had taken to wearing it in. His dark skin, already decorated with scars and burns from a myriad of different nightmares, now bearing a new collection of bruises and nearly-bloody scratches and bites. Marks of his own, Tim thinks, somewhat irrationally. He looks small, lost, even inoffensive. But Tim knows the truth. This is merely a facsimile of humanity, a façade that cracks and splinters and reveals what is hiding underneath, peeking out of the openings with a thousand staring eyes.</p>
<p>It isn’t Jon. It hasn’t been Jon for a long time. Maybe from the moment he accepted the bloody position of Head Archivist. Maybe somewhere further along the way, witnessed under the ever-watchful gaze of that fucking bastard Elias. It isn’t Jon, and knowing that <em>hurts. </em></p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and Tim feels his face twist in disgust. Jon’s lower lip trembles, in a way that makes it obvious he’s trying to stop it, to no avail. “If there was something, <em>anything, </em>that I could do to fix it, I would.”</p>
<p>Fix it? He nearly laughs. There hadn’t been a way to fix what happened to Danny. There isn’t anything that can fix what happened to Sasha, or reverse the way Martin has gone from his flustered and smiling self to someone harder and frightened and willing to have his soul flayed with his own deepest torments just to buy them enough time to try and stop the apocalypse. There is nothing to be done about the nights Tim has woken up screaming, and the scars that itch in body and mind, and the space in his memories where his image of Sasha has been overwritten with that revolting smiling thing that wore her identity as its skin.</p>
<p>There is nothing that can mend the broken remains of the care he’d once felt for Jon. That bridge has been burned to the ground, gone up in smoke like Jon had before this new thing remade itself from the ashes. Something of the Watcher, of the Archives, of Elias. Something Tim wants no part in.</p>
<p>“There isn’t,” he simply says, and it’s clear Jon had already known the answer, or Known it, or whatever the fuck he can do. He nods, and looks down at the floor, and a single tear runs its course down his darkened cheek. Tim watches it, transfixed, and in that moment he feels so earth-shatteringly lonely that he almost decides to stay. To seek one last bit of comfort with someone who doesn’t deserve it.</p>
<p>But no. Jon’s made his choice, and so has Tim. Tomorrow the Unknowing will happen, and Tim is not letting it come to fruition.</p>
<p>He’s not stupid. He’s well aware he will not survive the endeavour. Is rather counting on it, in fact. It hardly matters; he’ll go down, but he’ll make bloody sure he’s taking Grimaldi or Nikola or whatever its name is and its Circus along with him. Out in a blaze of fire and glorious regret.</p>
<p>He doesn’t know what will happen to Jon, or Daisy and Basira. He finds he doesn’t have the strength left to care.</p>
<p>There are no more words exchanged between them as Tim turns around and leaves, closing the door behind him and doing his best to ignore the afterimage, the kneeling figure of what-once-was-Jon burned into his brain like a cattle brand.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>mr stoker i miss you so much you deserved better<br/>comments are always appreciated! hope you enjoyed the 3k words of misery and porn :’)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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